Fabulous babe and professional PLO prevaricator Diana Buttu was the guest of honor on a local public radio talk show Monday morning. Host Michael Krasny, who is also professor of English at SFSU, was apparently smitten by Buttu's voluptuous brown eyes and luscious full lips, as he allowed her to make many wildly false claims. Including "Israel has killed 1% of the Palestinian population" (Howard Fienberg's analysis would indicate a much, much lower number) or "70% of the Palestinians favor a two-state solution" (apparently only if the two states are Palestine and Jordan, according to this recent poll)
UPDATE: (7/31) The full transcript is finished and posted here As you will see, Buttu made a large number of false and misleading statements, as well as some hilarious evasions and bizarre opinions.
Here are some more:
"Israel is waging a brutal occupation" (which also lets her in and out of Gaza)
"there has never been any documentation to show that there is a link between Arafat and terrorism"
"Arafat had no personal knowledge of [the Karine-A]"
"There is a very,very strong non-violent movement inside the occupied territories, but nobody ever hears about them... because there is only one western journalist in the occupied territories"
"It is up to the United States to give Palestinians their freedom"
"[The Palestinian] nation seeks to be a democratic and ... secular one"
"[Equating the Al-Aqsa Brigades with Arafat's Fatah] is the equivalent of saying that the bombings that used to happen to abortion clinics were for the most part carried out by Republicans "
and on and on...
I would like to thoroughly expose and debunk Buttu's distortions. Hopefully, the next time she's on a call-in show someone can be prepared to do a better job challenging her than Krasny did.
Please help me fact-check this gorgeous woman's ass. Read the transcript, pick a claim, any claim, investigate and post your comments. e.g. Is the percentage of malnourished Palestinian children really the same as in sub-Saharan Africa? Is the occupation really illegal? If so, under what law? What really happened at Camp David? etc.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at July 31, 2002 07:21 AMItd is always amusing to note how right-on Darwin was about sexual selection and how all males are so quickly seduced by Fitness (not as in aerobics), but for those nice Palestinian babes who would spout their nonsense there are the others who now troop to terror warehouses to get their explosives to blow themselves up.
But then SFSU is a hotbed of stupidity from all I have read of late, and English Profs are indeed very often compelled to speak on all subjects in a knowing way...hey, I know: I taught English at a university for 25 years.
Hmmm... Beavis and Buttu. "Heh-heh, heh-heh, she said 'non-violent', heh-heh, heh-heh."
Posted by: BarCodeKing on July 31, 2002 06:38 AMMichael Krasny is an author and professor of literature at San Francisco State University. Host of KQED’s Forum program, Krasny’s numerous awards include a Meritorious Achievement in Radio award from Media Alliance, the S.Y. Agnon Award for Intellectual Distinction from Hebrew University, Human Rights Coverage award from the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and the George Knox Award in Journalism.
Posted by: fred lapides on July 31, 2002 07:11 AMFred raises some good points that I should have mentioned myself. I think Michael Krasny is a decent guy. He's recognized as an authority on Jewish literature, and he does a lot for Jewish cultural programs.
But I find that his style as an interviewer errs on the side of being too sensitive and deferential towards his guests. This isn't the worse trait in the world when you mainly interview writers, artists and academics as he often does. This approach does not, however, serve the audience very well when the guest is a shameless propagandist for a terrorist organization. In this particular instance, I think, Krasny allowed himself, his station and his audience to be used.
Posted by: Stefan Sharkansky on July 31, 2002 11:07 AMStefan - it sounds like you would like to 'occupy' Ms. Buttu a few times.
ZB
I will look at the transcript and see what I can come up with.
Posted by: coke on August 1, 2002 08:44 AMIt might help if you numbered the paragraphs
ON the 2000 killed, 1% point.
The recently released UN report buts the death toll of arabs through May 7 at 1,539. Anti-Israel Btselem puts the number trough July 30 at 1372 (assuming my addition is right). The UN probbaly includes suicide bombers who killed thenselves and perhaps so called collaborators as well. IN either case less than 2000.
2000 is 1% of 200,000. While I agree with Ms. Buttu that there are at most 200,000 true palestinians, she probably has a higher number in mind.
In the same paragraph she speaks of no one pushing the sides to end the conflict - her boss can end the conflict immediately if he wants. He just has no desire to.
Also, notice that Buttu puts the settler figure at 400,000. This is higher than the number you mormally see which is around 250,000. Why? She includes the numbers living in east Jerusalem.
I think it is helpful to use the larger number since it makes the problem look not as easy as just shutting down some trailer parks.
Also, you can see from Krasny's fifth comment that he is a left winger who sees the settlements as the problem.
IN terms o Arafat's wealth, she does not really deny it just says he does not spend it. I have seen the number put much higher though. http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=12801">
Buttu says "billions of dollars that haven't been turned over" 1) she of course does not mention that this withholding was not the most blatabnt violation and 2) articles put th number at $600 million not billions.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020731/ap_wo_en_ge/israel_palestinians_5865
Krasny gets it wrong - for over a year a majority of Palestinians have supported homicide bombings - he says "now" support
IN terms of supprot for a two state solution, most recent poll shows a majority of palestinians want to detroy Israel. http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=12451
and
http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=12440
In the section on Barak's offer (the offer was really made at Taba - Krasny refers to the Barak offer - she refers to Camp David- the Camp David offer though was not the best offer). She is failing to disclose something in order to mislead, at best:
Dennis Ross
"The ideas were presented on December 23 by the president, and they basically said the following: On borders, there would be about a 5 percent annexation in the West Bank for the Israelis and a 2 percent swap. So there would be a net 97 percent of the territory that would go to the Palestinians.
On Jerusalem, the Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem would become the capitol of the Palestinian state.
On the issue of refugees, there would be a right of return for the refugees to their own state, not to Israel, but there would also be a fund of $30 billion internationally that would be put together for either compensation or to cover repatriation, resettlement, rehabilitation costs.
"
"So the Palestinians would have in the West Bank an area that was contiguous. Those who say there were cantons, completely untrue. It was contiguous. "
http://foxnews.com/story/0,2933,50830,00.html
I have not proofed this
Butto: "well ... There is nothing antithetical in our sense of nationalism that prohibits Jewish Citizens of Palestine. .. . . Jerusalm . . . open city"
On Jews living in 'Plaestine' - it is illegal to sell land there to Jews and arabs have been killed for doing it. http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=1639
US courts have granted asylum to christians from the West Bank based on religious descimination - Jews would be treated no better.
http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=1382
In terms of an 'open city' - this has never been proposed by the arabs (and was rejected in 1948) - See Ross's interview in my previous email.
Buttu "Well again . . . There have been Jewsih citizens of Palestine before the state of Israel." There have not been since there was never a stae of Palestine to be a citizen of.
in terms of the net discussion on suicide bombings, Krasny uis wrong again and Buttu misleads, many are carried out by Fatah, the tanzim and aks martyrs brigade.
"No such dilemmas face the militants of Hamas and Islamic Jihad (the two organizations responsible for the latest attacks), and even the Al Aksa Martyr's Brigade linked with Arafat's own Fatah organization. They're out to demonstrate their continued ability to kill Israelis despite the IDF's presence in the West Bank cities and signal their rejection of any new diplomatic efforts. "
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,321881,00.html
Also on cooperation with Hamas - there is actually a coordinating committee and Arafat has offered a coalition recently.
Posted by: zb on August 1, 2002 10:26 AMOn text books she first says taht they invited the UN and US professors "conclusions . . . completely independent . . . was that the Pal text books wre far better than ANY Israeli text books" she than goes on to say Nathan Brown did the only independent research (I assume she is talking about the same thing here) Here is what Brown asid in comapring the books
"I hesitate to compare the Israeli and Palestinian educational systems. Their situations are different, and I conducted no study on Israeli textbooks. But my children have attended Israeli schools and I have tried to keep abreast of research by Israeli academics. My impression is that both Israeli and Palestinian schools handle an awkward political situation similarly: they are actually more similar than either side would like to admit!"
http://www.palestinemonitor.org/takpoints/report_on_palestinian_textbooks_.htm
Posted by: zb on August 1, 2002 12:39 PMLater she corrects it and says 20,000 were injured which is 1%. It is actually 1% of 2,000,000. Palestinians claim 3.5 million in Israel and 3.5 million outside. IN terms of the 20,000 injuried. These statistics generally come from the Palestinian Red Crescent Society. They use a very broad definition of those injured and include many people who Israel does not list in its own statistics of Israelies injureed. This would include people treated for shock. Also, the PRCS does not distinguish by what casued the injury, thus if you sprained your arm throwing a molatove cocktail during a 'demonstration' and went to the local medical tent for treatment, you are listed as an insraeli casualty.
Of the 20,000 people treated, over 25% (5,085) are for tear gas - which is not a real injury generally and is a type of injury the pals want and complain that israel does not use enough tear gas as a means of crowd control. Also, over 4000 injuries are not from bullets, plastic bullets or tear gas. Many of these may be of the self inflicted type.
http://www.palestinercs.org/crisistables/table_of_figures.htm
Another chart details that of 13,000 injuries, only 28% went to emergency rooms and the rest were treated at field hospitals. This implies that most of these injuries are not serious and not real injuries and the sufferers not real caualties.
The PRCS is a palestinian organization with political motivation to exagerate the number of injuries suffered.
http://www.palestinercs.org/images/graphs/emsactivitiespercent2.gif
Also
Posted by: zionblog on August 2, 2002 06:11 AMNo, Krasny is NOT a "decent guy." Any attractive woman who's spent time in the English dept. at SFSU can tell you the guy's a predatory lecher. It's bad enough when you can practically hear him drooling over the airwaves, but listening to him swoon over Buttu was just horrifying. The guy would sell Jerusalem to get a piece of ass. Sorry if this disillusions anyone.
Posted by: melaniek on September 30, 2002 11:53 PMKudos for the transcript and the factchecking... not to mention the sexist commentary. After seeing Buttu on Cspan, I was curious, and found this materal highly informative.
I do note the tendency for people here to nitpick the details rather than deal with the larger issues and the points she made then... Two of which I repeat below: Its hard to argue with these - just as its proper to fault Arafat for his lack of leadership, so too is it proper to fault Sharon and company for theirs. -Shalom... Sascha.
"It was as though the Palestinians and Israelis were negotiating over a pizza. And while we were negotiating Israel was continually eating that pizza."
"I'm not sure if you knew this, but between the years 1997 to the year 2000 there wasn't a single Israeli who died of a suicide bombing. Not a single one."
Hmmm, "Terrorism with a pretty face," huh? I'm glad to see Israeli propaganda is funnier than ever, haha. One day the human brain will click in for some people. Yep, living in Palestine off and on and getting ones Doctorite degree must mean you're dumb. I forgot Israelis are the chosen ones and the rest of us nothing. :)
Let's just make all of Israel control the whole world and I know everything would be right then. :)
Posted by: E.A. on August 30, 2003 01:52 PMIf Israel would negotiate with an intention of making peace the conflict would have been over years ago, but Israel does not want peace or negotiations..Let me remind everybody that everytime there is a period of calm Israel would assasinate somebody and make the area explode in violence again. Sharon is a war criminal, and one who deserve to be behind bars. He is the true terrorist in the Middle East
Posted by: David on April 15, 2004 08:50 PMIf anyone believes the quack this women Buttu spews, I'd suggest you get a better news source. Better yet, go to Israel put on CNN and look out you window. Go talk to these kids in the IDF. Consider the source, intellects! This women knows no more of her history than an inner city kid who can't read. Let me share with you what Wolf Blitzer told us when we confronted him. QUACK,QUACK. What a puppet. Israel-the size of New Jersey. Think about it.
Posted by: scott gross on October 21, 2004 05:22 PM